Neverland Memoirs
by Morbid Cheshire
Summary: Don't ask about the title. Random moment of inspiration. These are little ficlets from Mamimi's point of view, possibly one for each episode with her in it.
1. Home

((A/N: This is a Mamimi-POV fic, set in the first episode, Fooly Cooly. I might make it an ongoing series, doing one for each episode… maybe. Don't expect it to be too long, this is just fooling around with Mamimi's character. I love her… so much angst! Oh remember, Takkun is Naota here, not the kitten, and Tasuku-sempai is the older brother. Enjoy. :D ))

Takkun tastes like home.

I know him. He's the only one left, my little Takkun. Tasuku-sempai has gone to America, gone to play baseball. Playing. That's all life is. A game.

Why can't Tasuku-sempai play life here?

Play with me.

Takkun plays with me.

He doesn't play very well. He doesn't know the rules, and he complains a lot about when I win. Or when he wins. It's a good game. We always both win. Well, most of the time. I like it when he plays with me.

Takkun tastes like home.

Takkun tastes like Tasuku-sempai.

Sometimes he doesn't want to play. Tasuku-sempai was like that too. Sometimes they don't want to play, and I'm left all alone. But I don't mind. I like my bridge, my river. I can play here, but not the same game. It's not as fun, but it's better than school. I like my lighter, my cigarettes, my fire.

Takkun doesn't like my fire. He says it smells, he says it's not healthy and I should stop. Tasuku-sempai didn't mind, but sometimes he would look at me like Takkun does. I don't like that look. It means they're upset with me. When they're mad about the game they might quit. I can't quit, they can't quit or I'll be alone with my bridge and my game for too long, much too long and then bad things could happen. Takkun doesn't understand.

Fire is my home. I smell like fire. Takkun tastes like home. We're the same, why can't he see that? He doesn't want to play with me. Takkun tells me to go to school. I don't want to. I just want to play with Takkun. School is a bad place, there are no games, no alone time, too many people all around and I can never play with them. They play a game but I am not a player, I am the goal.

Tease Mamimi. Five points.

Hurt Mamimi. Fifteen points.

I don't like that game. I stopped playing. No school for Mamimi.

There's a new girl. She plays too. She makes up rules and changes everything so nothing makes sense and she steals Takkun for her team and the game isn't mine anymore. I want Tasuku-sempai to come home. I need him on my team if Takkun is on Haruko-san's….

Takkun says there is another girl. There is another girl on Tasuku-sempai's team.

Tasuku-sempai is not coming home to play. Tasuku-sempai is playing in America. Baseball. Life. There is another girl. Two girls. Gold and pink. New teams.

I am on no one's team. Mamimi is alone. Haruko-san is alone. Takkun is alone.

Don't take my Takkun. I need him; he's all that's left. They will play and I can't. Odd girl out can't play. No room on our team. Hurt Mamimi, fifteen points. Takkun has changed games. Takkun isn't mine any more. Haruko-san is stealing him.

I don't want to be alone again.

Home.


	2. Fire

There is a god watching over me.

Takkun brought him here. Lord Canti, god of the black flames, protector of the weak. Haruko-san changed Takkun's head and Canti came out.

Black wings. Black flames. Bright orange, yellow, red- fire is my friend. Takkun is my friend and maybe Haruko-san too, even though she is taking Takkun from me. She asked me to come in out of the cold. I don't need to. I'm not cold. But she asked. She didn't listen to Takkun's grandfather. I'm glad. He's wrong.

I am not cursed. I am not a slut. I will not hurt Takkun. He doesn't understand. Only my fire understands, my game turned real. I am not cursed. I am blessed by Lord Canti. God of black flames, black ash.

Fire is my friend, but it leaves marks. Black soot and dust, charcoal and remains. Fire can eat away my problems; the bad places- fire can cleanse and clear. But it leaves parts behind. Gifts. I don't want them. My friend helps, but it can never make them completely disappear.

I wish I could disappear sometimes. I go to my bridge and play with Takkun- the boy, the cat. I saved a cat. I am like Lord Canti, a protector of the weak. Black flames, black wings, black fur. Takkun-neko is black. Takkun-neko is my friend. Fire is my friend. Lord Canti is watching me- I saved a cat. Lord Canti saw. He will help me disappear; I will help him save the world.

The fire helps. It plays and dances, eats and jumps high into the sky. Testing its strength. Testing its enemies. The fire will cleanse and clear.

Lord Canti has black wings. I saw him fly. Fire in the sky.

Fire is never really in the sky. Smoke is. Grey clouds. They hide me away; keep me safe from the others who don't understand. Firemen. Police. They'll stop me and Lord Canti will never help. They don't understand. I need Canti to help me.

Takkun understands, but he is sad. He is sad for me; he knows I am alone with my river, bridge, sky, my other Takkun. He knows the games at school. He knows I don't win. But he doesn't know about my other friends.

Fire, ash, smoke, soot. They are all my friends. We will serve Lord Canti and Lord Canti will help us. I need my friends. Tasuku-sempai is playing baseball in America. Takkun is playing with Haruko-san. I have no one but my cat, my other Takkun. Protector of the weak.

I need Lord Canti to help me. I need to disappear. I need absolution. Baptism by fire. Tasuku-sempai left me, Takkun left me, Canti is leaving me- I am not cursed I don't want to be cursed I am cursed I am cursed I am cursed forever, marked by black ash and smoke. I smell of smoke. Takkun hates smoke. I need my friends. Where is my lighter?

Lord Canti is not real. Fire is not black. The black wings are not real. Where is my fire? Where is my absolution? I am cursed. The fire hurt me once, I am marked. Fire is a false friend. The fire can hurt me and Tasuku-sempai can't save me because he is in America. I need my home.

Takkun.

Help me.


	3. Masks

((A/N: I didn't think I'd make another one of these after Fire, but my muse decided otherwise. A little bit is inspired from the manga, because I thought it was perfect for the story. So this is my Mamimi-fic from episode three, Marquis De Carabas. There's lots about Ninamori in here, so have fun.))

Why do they hate me?

I never did anything to them. I'm just not like them. The piece that doesn't fit. I don't wear makeup. I don't have expensive things. So I am shunned, kept out of their lives, I am just a silly, weird girl and not worth their time. The dropout. The girl by the river.

I like it there. My river is my home. The bridge protects me, the water plays with me. No one but Takkun comes to the river with me. The water understands me. Fire and water, so alike and yet so different.

She hates me too. Takkun's friend, the girl with long dark hair. Hair like the river, flowing and smooth. Eri Ninamori, the mayor's daughter. To her I am just the delinquent girl, the child molester, the pyromaniac arsonist. I don't know why she hates me so much.

She hates herself, too.

Takkun doesn't see it. I was surprised. Takkun can see lots of things. Takkun sees why I don't go to school. Takkun sees why I don't go home. Takkun sees what Tasuku has done when everyone else is blinded by baseball. But Takkun can't see Ninamori. He sees her mask, her cloak of river-water and believes. He believes she is fine. He thinks she is proud, confident, happy. It's a lie.

Her father might go to jail because of the scandal with his secretary. Her mother cares only for jewelry and has no time for her own river, her girl with long dark hair. Ninamori hates her life.

She's like me. She hides behind her mask, and I hide under the bridge. Always hiding. Don't look and it will go away. Sweep your problems under the rug and maybe things will get better.

They never do, and she doesn't know. She thinks they will melt away and she can sink into her new reality without a ripple.

They will explode someday, and she doesn't know. I could show her. I could show her the ashes of my life and she would see. But no. She despises me because I do not fit in her new life. I am the piece that does not fit.

I do not fit because she loves Takkun, and he can't see. And she thinks I am stealing him away.  
Takkun doesn't belong to me. If I am fire then he is the wind. Free and fast, making the flames stronger and brighter. Takkun helps me when I am nothing but embers. Takkun comes and I live again.

Ninamori can't see that.

Fire and water, light and dark, matches and rivers. So alike and yet so different. The delinquent firestarter and the nouveau-riche princess.

We could be friends. I could show her. But she is too different, too similar. We are too much alike. Fire and water collide and there is nothing left but steam. She can't break her mask. It would hurt too much.

And I do not fit.


	4. Rules

The world was supposed to end today.

The lady on the megaphone said so. There was a big bomb coming, a black sun that would swallow up Mabase. The world was going to end today. Maybe not the whole world. But my world. It would have been enough. The school and the kids. Tasuku-sempai's photos. The mayor and his secretary and his wife. Eri Ninamori. The bakery. My cat, my bridge, my river.

Takkun.

All gone.

Just a flash of light and that would be it.

People were scared. Things got crazy. Some guy came by and Haruko stole Takkun's dad. Takkun killed his dad who wasn't his dad too and then he went away for a while. School was cancelled. Everyone was so scared.

Not Mamimi.

The ninth inning is the most exciting part of the game. Tasuku-sempai never gave up, even if his team was losing, even though they never lost. Tasuku-sempai would wait until the end. So I waited. I wanted to see the end of the world. So I went to wait by the old towers. I took Canti too because even if he isn't a god he's an angel and he keeps me safe. Takkun keeps me safe.

Takkun wouldn't do anything though, I knew. Takkun never plays, never wants to play. It's how he is and I like it. Takkun always lets the pitches go right by him. He's afraid to miss, so he doesn't try. Everyone tells him to swing, just swing the bat- his dad, his grandpa, Haruko. Tasuku-sempai would too. But he never, ever swings. Tasuku-semai would swing, Haruko always swings- but not Takkun.

Takkun swung today.

When the bomb was falling, when the sky turned red and the wind screamed and the people screamed and even Canti made noise, when the black sun was right overhead and even Haruko had run away-

Takkun swung the bat.

Haruko had given him a bat. She didn't think he would use it. No one thought he would use it. I didn't want him to use it.

He swung.

And he hit it.

It didn't go anywhere, it was so big and he was so little- and I thought maybe it would end right there, with Takkun standing so small against the sun- I wish I had my camera. Haruko came back. And she swung hard, and then it was gone and the sky was blue and the wind had stopped and everything was over. And the world is still here.

And I wish it wasn't.  
Mamimi is sick of the world. I tried to get rid of the parts I hate, I tried to burn them away but it was too much and I was trapped in the fire and Tasuku had to save me. And it was too little and the firemen put it out and the buildings still stand. The ash is still there. I could try again- I still have my lighter- but I've been burned before and it hurts and I can't control it and Tasuku-sempai isn't here any more.

Tasuku-sempai would always swing but isn't here.  
Haruko always swings and she ran.  
Canti was a god but lost his wings.  
Takkun swung the bat.

Everything has changed. Nothing to hold on to but no fire to end it. I am lost. The game isn't mine any more.

How can I play when the rules have changed?


	5. Devil

Nothing stays the same.

Takkun complains that Mabase is boring, that everything here is the same. The same routine day after day after day. And it suffocates him.

Tasuku used to complain too. Mabase is boring. There are no prospects here. He wants to play someplace better, where he won't face the same teams, the same faces.

But Mabase is safe. Everything is the same. Bad things like my parents and home and school- they're all the same. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, right? I know the bullies by name. I know their favorite games and their speed-dial lists. I know their parents and their teachers. And I know my parents, and what days they're safe, and what days I should be at the river instead. And good things stay too, like how much money will buy bread for a week. How many times I can steal from a locker before the owner changes the combination.

I know how to survive when everything is the same.

But then Tasuku left.

I used to know how long I could stay with Tasuku before he'd leave for baseball, or how long I could stay in his house before his grandfather would make me go. How often he would tease me with his friends. I knew how to adjust, to learn to like whatever he liked, because I knew how good he could make me feel, how long I could forget everything until it all came rushing back. How even the hurt could stop if I could just forget. And then he left for baseball. I had to learn again.

I learned how far I could tease Takkun until he would leave. How much I can drink from Takkun's soda before he's angry. How often I can smoke until he'll leave. How he'll never swing the bat, he'll never talk to other girls, he'll never understand Ninamori. And how he won't always come play- and he won't stop his friends from teasing- but he won't join them, either. I know his favorite drinks and insults, his report card font, the way his eyes look at sundown.

Then Haruko came. And now I have to learn all over again.

Takkun thinks that I use him like a little Tasuku, a replacement- it's not true. They're different. Used to be so different. Takkun was so young and sweet and kind and innocent. Takkun would never try to kiss a girl. Takkun would never force a girl to do anything- switch drinks, stop smoking, go to one of _those_ hotels. Takkun is not Tasuku.

Takkun drinks pulpy drinks now. The sour kind. Takkun swings the bat, saves the world, summons Canti. Takkun brags and teases and leaves me to his friends. Takkun wants me to call him Naota.

Takkun tried to kiss me and maybe more.

And now I don't know any more. Maybe Takkun is becoming Tasuku, like a phoenix from my ashes. Maybe everything will turn out the same again after all. Takkun will leave with Haruko and they will play together, they'll leave me in Mabase to readjust.

If Takkun leaves, Mamimi will be alone again.

And everything will be exactly like before.

But not the same.


End file.
